Call for Papers
Workshop on Spatial Distance Between Family Members
Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)

With support from the National Institute on Aging, the HRS and PSID will hold a two-day workshop in September
2010 to highlight research using newly available data from these two panel studies. The HRS obtained the zip codes
for children living more than 10 miles from the family respondent in the 2004, 2006, and 2008 waves.
Among the many possibilities, these data allow one to
determine distances between respondents and their children and among the children themselves. The PSID provides
similar data over an even greater time span. Begun in 1968, the PSID has a genealogical design, following
individuals and their descendents across their life course. Because the location of respondents is known in each
wave, distances between individuals and their various family members at a point in time and over time can be
calculated. Combined with the wide array of other data in both surveys, these additional data on location and
distances between family members can be used to study a wide array of issues. For example:

How far do children move from their parents when they leave their parental home initially, and which
children move the farthest?

How does the distance between adult children and their parents change over the childís and the parentís life
course? And how do job opportunities, unemployment spells, health shocks, changes in marital status,
fertility, and other factors influence these patterns?

How far do siblings live from each other? Within families, which siblings live the farthest from other
siblings and from their aging parents?

Does a desire to live near family members induce rigidities in the labor market?

When parents divorce, are children more likely to live near a mother or father?

These and many other questions can be investigated with these new data. The goals of the workshop are to stimulate
research using these new data and to learn from researchers ways in which such data can be made more accessible to
the research community.

Submission guidelines: We seek abstracts from authors interested in presenting their research using the geographic
information in either data set in order to study issues related to distances between family members. If you would
like to be considered for this workshop, please submit a two page description of your research idea and analytical
plan by February 28, 2010. In addition, please submit the CVs of all authors. The abstracts will be reviewed by a
knowledgeable panel of experts, with the top submissions chosen to be presented at the workshop. Because the
conference will be held relatively soon, authors will not need to prepare complete manuscripts for the workshop.
Instead, authors will need to be prepared to present a roughly 45 minute seminar and contribute to a group
discussion about issues related to the use of these data.

All persons are eligible to submit an abstract. Those persons whose abstracts are selected will be given access to
HRS constructed measures of distance between parents and children, and between up to four siblings. Additionally,
researchers can apply for access to restricted HRS and PSID data giving more specific geographic measures
following standard procedures. We will make every effort to help participants fulfill the requirements for restricted
data access as quickly as possible.

Questions regarding the workshop, as well as abstract and CV submissions should be directed to Aneesa Buageila.
Please submit abstracts and CVs as a single electronic file, in Word or PDF format.

Funding: Domestic travel and lodging expenses for one author will be paid for by HRS and PSID. The conference
will be held in Ann Arbor, Michigan.